Wednesday, August 15, 2007

IF Update

I was glancing over site traffic statistics for Hap's Dustbin, and even though they are pathetic as expected, I did notice traffic continues to come here from Dr. Eades' intermittent fasting blog post. As such, I thought it would be good to update folks on where I am today with IF. My last couple of posts weren't so positive, and I thought I should set the record straight.

I do continue to fast albeit much more randomly and usually only in response to digestive or allergy problems. The odd thing about not fasting on a schedule is that, for me, it's much harder than the MWF schedule I was keeping last winter. For reasons I cannot explain, the hunger makes me a bit crazy if I'm not on a schedule. On a schedule, the fast is simple.

As to my back problems, it was probably a combination of factors, but the central problem turned out to be our bed. I'm on a Tempurpedic mattress now and very rarely experience back problems. My tennis elbow is still there, unfortunately, but it's much better. The likely culprits were computer mousing, lifting my 4 year old son with one arm, and getting my laptop bag in and out of the car. Once I changed those behaviors, it began to improve.

One thing I learned doing IF is that you don't have to eat on a schedule. It's amazing to me how hard it is to deprogram your body from 3 meals a day. I still relapse occasionally and eat out of habit, but I'm often quite happy to eat breakfast followed by little to no lunch.

The main reason I'm not on a scheduled fast today is strength training. I could not seem to build strength or muscle on a regular IF schedule, but I was able to maintain muscle. As such, I hope to return to IF once I reach my fitness goals so I can feel better overall.

If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. I've created a Topics section to the right so my IF posts can be accessed more easily if you're just wondering how it worked in my case. I'll also be doing some new posts on what I've done since IF to extend my fat loss.

Thougth I've been as low as 183, my weight is currently around 186 with 10.8% bodyfat fully hydrated on my Tanita BIA scale. Even though some of my recent improvement did not happen under consistent IF, I still attribute my success to IF. Without IF, I wouldn't have learned to control my eating.